Okay, I loved the dreamwave era. And IDW took a long time to convince me it was a worthy successor. As much as I respect furmans past work, his ReGeneration 1 and -Ation series were best described as "competently boring." All the right ingredients for a good story were there, but it rarely got me excited or invested.
All hail megatron and the following ongoing were flawed, but made me feel like there were new takes on certain characters and elements, and sincerely involved me.
But it wasn't until Chaos Theory and the following More than Meets The Eye that I really became a believer and felt that IDW had truly hit its stride.
That said, I've always felt Robots in disguise, now just "The Transformers" was a book with potential, but rarely realized and cashed in potential. As of late though, it too has entered a stage of realizing that potential. Unlike Furman's brooding, soliloquy espousing Prime, I felt that RID's prime had reason to be sullen and serious. He's had to come to accept that all he stood for, including his very title, arguably did just as much harm as Megatron did to cybertron and it's people. He's working his way through regrets, and finding his place in this new universe. A universe where the transformers version of Iago is King. This latest development is a sign that he's done doubting himself, and is following his ideals and trying to live up to the faith many place in him. So kudo's for this series for that character growth.
That said, I'd like to see more team ups of prime and megatron at this stage in their lives. It'd be great to see how they play off each other in a crisis. Basically a two and a half men with Rodimus as Jake.
As for Dreamwave, Dreamwave had the unenviable task of picking up the brand having to DO something with G1 and new lines after the cartoon and marvel comic. They had to reboot something that had been Dormant for nearly a decade, and make it feel simultaneously new and familiar. Frankly, despite certain hiccups, I'm impressed they did as well as they did. Even Furman, couldn't quite get up to speed and into that kind of groove when IDW greelighted the -ation series. And if ANYONE could hit the ground running on a more serious minded transformers property, you'd figure it'd be the guy that killed off roughly 70% of the human race back in G2. Not that his prime was any less annoying back then, but at least the story was interesting.
And yes, Pat Lee, despite being a talented penciler, is an utter tool as a businessman.
Leave the doubts and and the indecision to new leaders, like Bumblebee, or b rated charactes to be explored. And stop it with the Megatron being an autobot. "Megaton does not yield...he conquers!"
